


A Lot of Blood

by HeatedHeadwear (SplickedyHat)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Blood, Justifiably, Mentions of Death, People Kissing Dead People
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-17 06:24:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2299637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SplickedyHat/pseuds/HeatedHeadwear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six kisses for dead friends: a series of corpsesmooching scenes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Lot of Blood

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really interested in writing canon scenes from a primarily visual medium to add sensory details. I'm also interested in adding a sense of realism through those details--the way things don't go quite as smoothly or aren't as pleasant as they might seem in theory.  
> I realized only after I'd started writing the Dirk>Jane kiss bit that he also brought Roxy back! But I really liked the intro of what I'd already written so that one isn't in here.  
> Last of all: I don't consider this a pairing fic in any way.

You’re still a little light-headed, tingling all over from coming back to life, which, that’s pretty cool, but Rose is still looks kind of sick and weird (and gray!).  There are greasy purple-black shadows under her eyes and her hair is spread under her head in limp, semi-translucent white coils.   There’s, wow, there’s a _lot_ of blood—on the checkered ground beneath her and dripping sluggishly from the corner of her mouth—but if Karkat’s right you can fix it…

You don’t really know how kissing works exactly, but you understand that basically your lips are supposed to touch the other person’s, so you pucker up and just sort of lean over her and…

Rose’s lips are chapped and cold in a damp kind of way, and there’s a weird musty smell around her, but you’re kind of reassured to see her up close because underneath all the gray and dark sort of grimness, she still basically looks like Rose.

You really hope this does the trick.

\--

You’re mainly conscious of the cool, dewy grass under your hands, soaking through your dress, and also all the blood. Yes, that certainly is a lot of blood, you think, as in the corner of your eye a rustle of wings and a soft crackle of green energy tells you Jack is…waiting.  Just waiting.

Karkat talked you through this a couple minutes ago, back when you were still _really_ freaking out about it.  But the teartracks are drying now and your heartrate’s slower so you’ve either managed to calm down or you’re in shock.  Whichever one it is, you know what you need to do now.

Dave’s skinny torso is weirdly heavy, his head lolling on his shoulders.  You try to avoid touching the bullet holes but his shirt is still warm and wet under your fingertips. You kind of bend awkwardly over him, trying to aim your mouth right and keep an eye on Jack at the same time. It’s not much more than an awkward peck, and anyway after a couple of seconds his jaw kind of drops open a little and you’re kissing more teeth than lip.  When you pull away there’s a smear of blood across your chin.

 “Oh man,” you say kind of helplessly, and pick up your gun.

\--

You’re crying so hard that your face hurts and your vision’s all pink, but you kind of gather Kanaya up into your arms, which is distressingly hard with a dead body.  Everything is kind of floppy and awkward and terrible and you can’t even pretend she’s asleep at this point.

In the movies, first kisses usually happen with a romantic interest, not a best friend.  Sometimes the person in question isn’t who the main character ends up with, but at least it looks like they know what they’re doing and like they’re doing it because there’s some kind of mutual interest.

Not because it’s a last-ditch attempt to bring them back from the dead.

Through the tears distorting your vision, you can see the white blurs of her fangs, and feel them as two hard points against your lips as you sort of desperately push your face against hers. Your noses bump. Her lips are sticky with jade blood and black lipstick and…it’s not that you could really tell if her dream self were awake somewhere, but you saw what happened to Prospit.

She’s not coming back.

\--

You try to get a better lick at where his face is, intending only to taste the air a little, but you’re too close and you end up with yet more chocolate on the tip of your tongue.  It’s enough, though.  You get the fried-egg rounds of his eyes and the flattened spot on his face, slightly more flavorful than the gray of his skin. 

Eugh, this is not going to be pleasant. You sniff your way a little closer, tempted to plug your nose as the rich scent of his blood fills your cranial flavor cavities.  You’re certainly not going to get more of that blood on your lips if you can help it, so you try to come at it from an angle.  Your mouth stretched to one side, your nose wrinkled, your eyes ineffectually squeezed tight shut, you inch towards poor dead Tavros’s face.

The thought that finally makes you close the distance is, _Come on Terezi, or she’ll have killed everyone by the time you’re done!_

You get it over with quickly, like ripping of an adhesive medical strip, and predictably, there’s no effect.

Fear not, Tavros, you will be avenged.

\--

A kiss is just a movement.  Like taking a step, swinging a sword, riding a rocketboard. It’s all a matter of coordinating your muscles so that the required motions happen.

Roxy can’t achieve that state of mind, and you get that.  It’s hard for most people to disconnect certain movements from their societal meanings. But time is dead kids and the fire is going to fucking cook all of you alive soon and someone needs to put their lips on Jane’s because Jane _can not stay dead_. So you move your foot to get Roxy out of the way, move your body to crouch next to Jane, and shut down the nausea that tries to rise in your gut at the sight of the hole the Red Miles left in her torso.

The kiss is short but not dispassionate. It’s only a movement, a functional kiss, but its function is important to you and you allow yourself a moment of relief before setting the show back in motion.

And now, somewhere else in Paradox Space, you guess it’s your turn.

\--

Dirk’s head is heavy and your arms are burning a little and the air smells of ash.  You focus alternately on the lines of red text on your visor and the face in front of you.  It’s pretty surreal—the head feels almost fake, like a movie prop, the hair slightly flattened on one side by its time on the stone floor.  Drops of blood fall steadily from its—his—chin and when you shift one hand away from the stump a sticky string of red comes with it.

You swallow hard, use your thumbs to lift the jaw so that his mouth isn’t hanging open, and move the head tentatively closer. The stupid robot keeps quiet for once, thank fucking goodness—kissing your best chum’s severed head is hard enough as it is!

His lips are like the rest of him, cooler than a living human’s and utterly unresponsive.  You keep your tongue strictly out of things because you don’t even really know how that’s supposed to work and this is weird enough and besides, who even knows how much blood’s in his mouth.  Probably a lot.

You sure don’t want to find out.  


End file.
